Of Wolves and Men

by Barry Lopez

  Were we to perceive such a synthesis, it would signal a radical change in man. For it would mean that he had finally quit his preoccupation with himself and begun to contemplate a universe in which he was not central. The terror inherent in such a prospect is, of course, greater than that in any wolf he has ever written about. But equally vast is the possibility for heroism, humility, tragedy, and the other virtues of literature.

  Fourteen

  A HOWLING AT TWILIGHT

  AT THE SOUTHERN END of the Acropolis in Athens stand the ruins of the Lyceum. Philologists argue about the origin of the name but it seems probable that the building was once used as a place of worship for Apollo, the Wolf Slayer. Apollo was a patron of shepherds, and Pausanias, a second-century Greek author, writes that it was Apollo who directed shepherds to put out meat laced with bark poison to kill wolves. In later years the Lyceum became a gymnasium, then a hall where Aristotle, among others, taught. At the time he was lecturing, Aristotle was writing a text on animals, and in the section on wolves he included the story of Apollo’s birth on the Island of Delos. Apollo’s mother, Leto, disguised as a wolf and accompanied by a pack of wolves, had made the trip from the land of the Hyperboreans to Delos to escape detection by the jealous Hera, wife of Zeus, who was Apollo’s father.

  How Apollo became the major figure in Greek mythology associated with wolves is still something of a mystery. As a patron of shepherds he was supposed to kill them, but he also took on the form of a wolf to fight, as in the Aeneid, where he destroys the sorcerers of Rhodes. His temple at Argos commemorates a battle between a wolf and a bull, as does a bronze relief at his temple at Sicyon. And there is also a bronze wolf at his most famous shrine, the Oracle at Delphi. One explanation for the Delphic wolf is that a wolf once killed a temple robber at some distance from the shrine and then led worshipers to the kill. They recovered what had been stolen and cast a statue of the wolf in bronze to honor him. Coins issued at Argos, a patron city of Apollo, were adorned with wolves from at least the fifth century B.C.

  Apollo, then, was associated with wolves, but this is not a strong theme in Greek mythology. He was more widely known as a sun god. I have already referred to the confusion over the Greek words for “light” and “wolf.” Perhaps they were genuinely confused, or perhaps they are related in a way philologists cannot understand. Adding to the confusion is the epithet “wolf-born,” used to describe the circumstances of Apollo’s birth, but also used to refer to a place, Lycia, where the cult figure, Apollo, originated. In the Iliad, for example, Apollo is most beloved of the Lycian warriors. So, in literature, the terms “Lycean Apollo,” “wolf-born Apollo,” and “wolfish Apollo” are sometimes interchanged. In Agamemnon Cassandra invokes Apollo as a wolf slayer. Jocasta in Oedipus Rex and Electra in Electra seek reassurance in Lycean Apollo. The chorus in The Seven Against Thebes asks him to fight their enemies: “Be wolf to them wolf-slayer! With gnashing of the teeth requite them.”

  Before the Hellenistic invasion, both hunting and agricultural people with ties to the wolf (totemistic in the case of the hunters, perhaps propitiatory in the case of the shepherds) lived in Greece. As the worship of Apollo was slowly grafted onto the beliefs of both by the Hellenistic invaders, Apollo came to be associated with the protection of sheep among agriculturists and with warrior virtues among hunters. Hence Apollo’s somewhat contradictory wolf-hater-wolf-admirer image.

  The classicist Richard Eckels suggests that after wolves had been reduced in numbers in Greece people became sentimental about them and, along with the crow, they became sacred to Apollo, who was now supposed to protect them. I don’t think this is any more likely than that Osiris was a wolf god, as some have suggested. A culture that raises sheep and cattle (and is troubled by wolves well into modern times), that produces Aesop’s fables and most of the antipathetic wolf lore of the Western world, does not suddenly become sentimental about wolves. As for Osiris and the other Egyptian gods sometimes identified with the wolf, this is likely a case of confusion with the jackal.

  The wolf that shows up in Apollonian legend is one that is familiar to us. The wolf of the Norsemen is something quite different. In that mythology we encounter some elements already familiar: the wolf in association with light, with war, with witches, and with Loki, the trickster. But the wolves of Teutonic mythology are overpowering in these roles.

  Imagine you are standing on the shores of the Baltic Sea on a cold, wintry day. The thick gray clouds stretch to the horizon. The sea is torn into scraps of whitecaps by a relentless wind that causes you sometimes to reach out to keep your balance. A roar begins to build in your ears, as though you were in a dark tunnel at the approach of a train. With a screeching explosion it is beside you, a gigantic woman astride an enormous gray wolf, its eyes glowing like two moons, a snake around its head for a bridle. When one of the Nordic giantesses, Hyrrokin, arrived at the funeral of Balder, four Berserker struggled to hold her wolf in check while she broke the enormous funeral ship Hringhorn loose from the sand.

  That was the wolf of the Norse. They called him the gray horse of the giantesses, the dusky stallion of the night rider.

  Nordic wolves were the companions of the Norns, the Teutonic fates. The Finns called them Rutu’s hounds, dogs of the death spirit. The ruler of all the gods, Odin, kept two wolves always at his side, Geri and Freki. They accompanied him in battle together with his two ravens, and tore the corpses of the dead. Thus Wolfram, from Wolf-hraben, “wolf-raven,” was a great warrior’s name, and to see a wolf and a raven on the way to battle augured victory. Rudolf, from Ruhm-wolf, was another warrior name, meaning “victorious wolf.” And Wolfgang meant “wolf going before,” a hero whose coming was announced by the appearance of wolves.

  I have alluded to the fanatic Berserker in connection with the European werewolf tradition, but there is nothing in southern Europe to match the stature of Fenris, Skoll, and Hati, the Nordic death wolves.

  Fenris was the son of Loki and Angur-boda, a giantess. Two other children were born of this illicit marriage: Hel, whom Odin cast down into the earth to rule the dismal realm of the walking dead; and Iormun-gandr, an enormous serpent Odin banished to the sea. Odin took Fenris to Asgard, home of the gods, where he hoped to have the wolf’s friendship and allegiance. But Fenris grew to such a size there that the gods were soon afraid to approach him. It was decided to chain the wolf to the earth to guard against trouble, and for this purpose a great chain, Laeding, was forged. By cajoling and flattering the pleasant-tempered wolf they managed to get the chain on him—only, they said, so he could show his great strength by breaking it. Fenris stretched, as if he had been taking a nap, and the chain fell to the ground in pieces. The gods returned with Droma, the strongest chain they could make, and managed to get Fenris to submit to being bound again. It took him a moment, but Fenris snapped the links of Droma, too.

  Fenris howling at Götterdämmerung.

  Now frightened and wondering how long Fenris would remain good-natured, the gods sent to the land of the dwarfs for a chain of prodigious strength. The dwarfs fashioned a slender rope, smooth as silk, from the spittle of birds and the murmurings of fish, from the anguish of bears and the footsteps of cats, from a woman’s beard and the roots of a mountain. The rope was called Gleipnir. It was so strong, they said, nothing could break it. If it was tested, it would only become stronger.

  Fenris eyed Gleipnir with suspicion. He agreed to be tied up only if someone would first put his hand into his mouth as a pledge. Tyr, a war god, stepped forth and placed his hand between Fenris’s jaws. The wolf was bound. He leaned into the bonds but they did not break. He put all his strength to them but they did not even begin to stretch. In a rage he crushed Tyr’s hand, tearing it off at the wrist, which thereafter became known as the wolf joint.

  With Fenris subdued, the gods put the end of Gleipnir through an enormous rock and tied it to a boulder which they threw into the sea. Fenris began to howl. The howling started deep inside him and the sound sh
ook the earth. One of the gods took his sword and drove it into the roof of Fenris’s mouth, wedging the butt against his lower jaw, so that he could not howl. The blood that gushed forth became the river Von.

  It was Fenris’s fate to remain thus chained like his father Loki and the giant Hel-hound Garm until the end of the world when Gleipnir would burst and he would be loosed to lead an army against Odin and the rest of the Aesir.

  The sign that the end had come would be the eclipse of the sun and moon. Each day Sun and Moon were pursued by the enormous wolves Skoll, Hati, and Managarm. Kept by Angur-boda, fed on the bone marrow of murderers and adulterers, of which there was no end, they grew stronger and stronger. Each day they got closer to Sol (Sun) and Mani (Moon) until one day their jaws closed around them and the life was crushed out of them. Their blood dripped from the wolves’ jaws and poured down on the earth. The stars began to fall out of the sky. This was Götterdämmerung, the Twilight of the Gods. Fenris was released. Loki and Garm broke their chains, and at the same moment the dragon Nidhug gnawed through the root of the world tree and the earth was split with the tremor. Then Heimdall, one of the Aesir, sounded the alarm on his horn Giallar, and the sound was heard the world over. At Asgard the Aesir armed themselves, and, mounting their horses, crossed the great rainbow bridge to Vigrid, where the last battle would be fought.

  Loki’s serpent son Iormungandr churned the sea to boiling before he crawled out onto the battlefield. One of the great waves stirred by his tail broke the Death Ship, Nagilfar, loose from the shore. It was made from the nail parings of the dead and Loki was at its helm. In another ship were the Frost Giants. Hel came up through a breach in the earth with Garm and the dragon Nidhug, who flew over the battlefield raining corpses from beneath his wings. The skies burst apart and there was Surtur with his sword of flame, igniting the earth. Fenris arrived, breathing fire, his eyes blazing, to stand with Garm, with Hel and Loki and the Death Horde, against Odin, Thor, Tyr, and the rest of the Aesir.

  At a signal the battle began. The gods fought with exemplary valor but were doomed from the beginning. Fenris met Odin with jaws so wide they took in everything between earth and sky and Odin was swallowed alive. Loki killed Heimdall but fell mortally wounded. Tyr drove his sword through Garm’s heart, but not before the Hel-hound tore him open. Thor struck Iormungandr a death blow and staggered back unharmed, only to be drowned in the flood of venom that poured from the serpent’s jaws. Odin’s son Vidar, seeing his father slain, rushed at Fenris and planting a foot in his mouth grabbed the wolf’s shaggy head and ripped the jaws apart.

  Surtur’s fire leaped higher and higher, consuming the forests and fields. Fire roared through the nine kingdoms of Hel and boiled the waters of the ocean, until the earth lay still and smoking.

  In time, under the light of a new sun, grasses began to grow. Flowers bloomed. The waters ran again. Two human beings, a woman named Lif and a man named Lifthrasir, whose descendants would spread over the earth, came out of a dark wood which the fires had not destroyed.

  At the beginning of the second Christian millennium, the Icelandic sailor Leif Ericsson was exploring the eastern coast of North America, from Newfoundland possibly to as far south as what we today call Virginia. Perhaps he sailed into the Upper Bay and observed the granite and forests of Manhattan Island. We have no way of knowing. Perhaps he and his men camped on the beaches of southern New Jersey and filled their water casks with the dark cedar water that would stay fresh in the barrels for more than a year. We do not know. But Ericsson would have seen wolves. He would have seen their tracks on the beaches everywhere he went. He would have seen them watching from the woods as his ship rolled in the breakers. He would have heard their howls as his men stepped ashore.

  Out of Ericsson’s sight, beneath the southern horizon, south of Libra and Scorpio, was a constellation of 159 stars. It was known in Europe as The Beast or The Wild Animal. The Assyrians called it the constellation of The Beast of Death, and its brightest star The Star of the Dead Fathers. It was incorporated by some into the constellation to the east, the Centaur, and regarded as a sacrificial offering, so that it came to be known as The Victim.

  It was also known by the name it still carries—Lupus.

  Had Ericsson and his men gone farther south than historians believe they did, been one evening anchored in the Florida Keys, they would have seen a midnight sun burning in the southern sky where Lupus was, the stellar fire of a supernova that took place some time in the year 1006.

  The chances are good that Ericsson did not see the supernova. The chances are that he regarded the Indians and the trees and the warmth of the seasons and went on his way, knowing not at all what would take place in this new world, what would die here and then be born again.

  You can, if you have access to a very good telescope, still observe the remnant of the supernova in Lupus. It is now the most delicate gossamer of filamentary nebulosity. Wisps of red and blue silhouetted against blue-black interstellar space.

  It is as though someone had cried out.

  Epilogue

  ON THE RAISING OF WOLVES AND A NEW ETHOLOGY

  DURING THE TIME I was researching this book, my wife and I raised two hybrid red wolves at our home in the woods in Oregon. These two wolves, Prairie and River, triggered many of the perceptions in this book and it was my association with them that first alerted me to the possibility of human error in the judgment of animals.

  I am wary of situations in which wild animals are penned for the sake of human analysis. And yet I cannot deny that this experience, our experience, was extraordinary. It opened my eyes to my own human biases, to the gaps in my formal education with regard to animals, and to my own capacity for pity, anger, and a sense of helplessness where wild animals are concerned.

  I would like in this epilogue to share some of these episodes. I don’t think they belong in the foregoing chapters because, strictly speaking, they amount to little more than the author’s experiences with his pets. But, with some clarification of my point of view, they have a place here.

  I am not an authority on wolves. I do not think my experiences are universal, and I do not wish to encourage other people to raise wolves. Wolves don’t belong living with people. It’s as simple as that. Having done it once, naïvely, I would never do it again. Most people I know who have raised wolves feel the same way. All too often the wolf’s life ends tragically and its potential for growth while it lives is smothered. I am grateful for the knowledge I have gained but if I’d known what it would cost I don’t think I would have asked.

  Prairie and River came to us from a wildlife park through the intervention of a friend and were three weeks old when they arrived. We bottle-fed them and, as is usually the case with young wolves, or dogs, they were intensely interested in everything around them. Canines use their mouths, I think, in much the same way we use our hands, especially when they are young. They are not trying to eat everything they encounter, they are simply trying to get a feeling for whatever it is. And the wolves felt everything. By the time they were six weeks old we had anything we valued stored three feet off the floor.

  In these first few weeks, Prairie and River howled mournfully, perhaps sensing their parents’ distance or their isolation from others like themselves. They ate ravenously and seemed always to be at one of two extremes: sleeping, sprawled like beanbags in the middle of the floor, or tearing through the house in pursuit of each other or imaginary beings. When they were seven weeks old they had a single, short, bloody fight during which the female, Prairie, got the best of the male, River. We never saw another fight as serious, though which animal usually deferred to the other afterward changed several times.

  They never tried to harm us when they were puppies (or later), though they jerked at our hair hard enough almost to wrench it from our skulls, and they would scratch us inadvertently with their claws and sharp milk teeth. And though we were not afraid of them when they got larger, they occasionally tried the imaginations of our fr
iends with their antics. One day a woman left her infant son on a blanket on our living-room floor and turned her back to talk with us. Behind her were the wolves, whose hiding place was under the wood stove. The pups came out into the open (overcoming their fear of a strange adult), anxious to get a closer look at the baby, a living creature (I was thinking they were thinking) close to their own size and, more importantly, one who also lived in that twelve-inch-high zone next to the floor where they lived.

  With great hesitancy, ready to flee at the first sign of discovery, jabbing the air nervously, high and low, for some clue to the creature, they finally got up to the edge of the baby’s blanket. Anxious to draw the baby into their world but still afraid of the adult whose back was turned only inches away, they took an obvious but frightening step—they took hold of the baby’s blanket and began pulling him away. At that moment the mother turned around and the surprised wolves—scrambling frantically for traction on the hardwood floor—bolted for their hideout under the wood stove.

  Another time, when they were about a year old, Prairie and River “attacked” Sandy, my wife. We had had friends to dinner and we wanted them to see the wolves before they left. It was very late, so we took a flashlight and led them out through the woods. The wolves had been asleep but they jumped up as we drew near. We were at the fence for only a few minutes, sweeping the flashlight around their pen, before we said good night to our friends and they departed.

  I felt guilty about waking the wolves up, about invading their privacy. I wouldn’t wake a child up for friends to see in the middle of the night. Sandy and I exchanged some thoughts about this and she went back to the pen without the flashlight. I went into the house. As she entered the pen the wolves immediately began to push her around, slamming against her with their bodies and soft-biting her arms and legs. They were fast enough and strong enough, of course, to have hurt her seriously, but they didn’t. Our intuitive feeling was that they were angry. Other people who have worked with wolves in enclosures have had similar experiences. It is almost as if the animals were warning you of the limits of friendship. What makes the message so strong, of course, is that it’s coming from an animal that can kill you.